Giving students, teachers, and parents an edge in dance education
Tired of plain, old water? Quench your thirst and stay hydrated with cucumber water instead! Motivated Nutrition’s Joanie Johnson offers Dance Advantage readers “Nutrition on the Move” in her new column dedicated to delicious recipes for dancers on the go.
Muscle fatigue is good but not when dancers push themselves (or are pushed by directors) to injury. We’re ignoring a crucial part of the formula for increasing endurance and enhancing performance. What is that element and why is it important for dancers to learn when enough is enough?
Summers away from home can be stressful. In a second installment on surviving summer intensives, Alison offers advice for dealing with complications like dance divas and messy roommates, and how to handle yourself professionally and with grace when receiving placement in a class level.
Away from home for her second summer, Alison is attending two ballet intensives, one in Connecticut, the other in New York City. As she shares some of the things she’s learned about summer intensives along the way, including how to prepare, handle fears, make friends, and practice respect, she is living the summer dance experience.
Dance teacher, Nants Foley created a special 70-page book for her students. Called A Dancer’s Steps it includes space for recording class work and progress as well as content like checklists, quotes, ballet vocabulary, foot care, and more. She has published the journal and workbook, making them available beyond her own dance school so we talk with Nants about the book and how she encourages journal-writing in her own ballet classes.
If you were looking to train professionally in modern dance and wanted to relocate to the big city, would you choose Los Angeles or New York? With a little help from a friend who knows both cities well we compare the dance personalities of each and discuss the importance of setting goals to get you where you want to go.
With an aim to raise the barre on nutrition and encourage healthy eating habits in the dance world and beyond, ballet dancers, Julia Erickson and Aaron Ingley created Barre, a real food bar made with natural ingredients. In this interview, Julia and Aaron share their story, their mission, and their own tips and ideas for eating healthfully on a dancer’s schedule with Dance Advantage readers.
f you have dreams of dancing in New York, one of your big questions about the Big Apple is likely “Where do I take class once I get there?” Dance in New York is a practical, DVD guide for dancers and dance students from all over the world featuring 12 of the city’s top schools and studios. It’s not a brand new resource but it is a unique and valuable one, and Dance Advantage has the latest on an upcoming second volume.
Without the taps, a tap shoe is just a shoe. In this Great Tap Shoeganza installment, Tristan thoroughly covers the most interesting part of the tap shoe, sharing a bit of history, some tips for fixing loose screws, a look at the variety of metal taps available, and more. Fellow dedicated “tap geeks” and casual enthusiasts alike will walk away with deeper understanding of a critical part of the tap shoe – something rarely offered on websites or elsewhere.
If you press, the upper body and center of gravity (CoG) needs to move over the leg, and if you spring, the supporting leg meets your CoG in the middle. Which do you prefer? In this post Lauren Warnecke explores the benefits and mechanics of both to provoke thought and conversation.
A reader wonders wonders how bowed legs might be affecting her second position and side split. She describes a related problem with knee and ankle alignment, leading to my response which focuses on tibial torsion. I provide a useful group of links and tips for working with this rotational deformity. Plus we talk about turn-out and side splits too!
Whether your foot concerns are as serious as suffering sesamoids, or as mundane as bothersome blisters, feet are happiest when they are comfortable and healthy. Continuing his Tap Shoeganza series, Tristan provides you with ways to modify tap shoes to make tap dancing much more enjoyable for those with new and/or congenital foot disorders.
